Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare From Ancient Times to the Present
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The ideology that has proven most popular and hence most durable as a motivating force for guerrillas and terrorists is neither liberalism nor anarchism nor socialism nor Islamism but, rather, nationalism. Its appeal may be judged from the fact that even though most terrorist groups of the 1970s failed, those that had a nationalist appeal, such as the PLO and IRA, managed to win important concessions, whereas those that advocated radical social change, such as the Baader-Meinhof Gang and the Weathermen, disappeared without a trace after the death or imprisonment of their leaders.
10. Most insurgencies are long-lasting; attempts to win a quick victory backfire. According to the Invisible Armies database, the average insurgency since 1775 has lasted ten years. The figure is even longer for post-1945 insurgencies—fourteen years. Interestingly there is little correlation between the length of a conflict and the insurgents’ chances of success. This flies in the face of the conventional wisdom summed up by the Vietnamese Communist strategist Truong Chinh in 1947: “To protract the war is the key to victory. . . . Time is on our side.”8 Protracting the conflict did favor the insurgents in Indochina, where their enemies were foreigners who would eventually tire of the conflict. But time is not usually on the insurgents’ side when fighting a homegrown regime. In the Invisible Armies database, there is little difference in outcomes between insurgencies that last fewer than ten years and those that last more than twenty years—the incumbents won 64.3 percent of the former and 63.9 percent of the latter.
The fact that low-intensity conflict tends to be “long, arduous and protracted,”9 in the words of Sir Robert Thompson, can be a source of frustration for both sides, but attempts to short-circuit the process to achieve a quick victory usually backfire. The United States tried to do just that in the early years of the Vietnam and Iraq wars by using its conventional might to hunt down insurgents in a push for what John Paul Vann rightly decried as “fast, superficial results.”10 It was only when the United States gave up hopes of quick victory, ironically, that it started to get results by implementing the tried-and-true tenets of population-centric counterinsurgency. In Vietnam, it was already too late, but in Iraq the patient provision of security came just in time.
A particularly seductive version of the “quick win” strategy is to try to eliminate the insurgency’s leadership. Such strategies do sometimes work. The Romans managed to stamp out a revolt in Spain by inducing some of the rebels to kill their leader, Viriathus, in 139 BC. The Americans managed to hasten the end of the Philippine insurrection by capturing its leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, in a daring 1901 raid. But there are just as many examples where leaders were eliminated but the movement went on, sometimes stronger than ever—as both Hezbollah and Al Qaeda in Iraq did. High-level “decapitation” strategies work best when a movement is weak organizationally and focused around a cult of personality. Even then leadership targeting is most effective if integrated into a broader counterinsurgency effort designed to separate the insurgents from the population. If conducted in isolation, leadership raids are about as effective as mowing the lawn; the targeted organization can usually regenerate itself.
Insurgents can also stumble if they attempt a premature offensive to achieve victory, as General Giap did in 1951 and 1968. Both insurgents and counterinsurgents would be well advised to heed Field Marshal Templer’s sagacious observation: “I have always said,” he wrote from Malaya in 1953, “that the complete cure of it all will be a long slog.”11
11. Guerrillas are most effective when able to operate with outside support—especially with conventional army units. From the guerrillas’ standpoint, the most important advantage they can enjoy next to having a popular cause is having outside support. Best of all is to be able to operate in conjunction with conventional units, either their own or an ally’s. This keeps a conventional army off balance. When it masses to fight main force units, it leaves its lines of communication vulnerable to guerrilla attacks. When it disperses to focus on the guerrillas, it leaves itself vulnerable to attack by the main force. In a few cases guerrilla leaders such as Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh have been able to build their own main force units. But such precedents are rare. More common is for rebels to work with foreign allies, the classic examples being American rebels cooperating with French forces against the British, Spanish guerrilleros cooperating with Wellington against Napoleon, and Arab rebels cooperating with Allenby and Lawrence against the Ottomans.
Even when they do not have main force units to work with, guerrillas greatly benefit from foreign funding, arms, training, and safe havens. No other factor correlates so closely with insurgent success—as demonstrated by examples as varied as the Vietcong and the Afghan mujahideen. One of the factors that greatly aided counterinsurgents in the ancient world was that insurgents were usually devoid of outside support. When insurgents do have substantial aid and it is cut off, the result can be catastrophic, as it was for the Greek Communist Party, which was cut off by Yugoslavia in 1948, and Angola’s UNITA, which was cut off by South Africa and the United States in the 1990s.
We must not, however, exaggerate the impact of foreign support. It is possible to win with little or no outside backing, as Fidel Castro showed in Cuba and Michael Collins in Ireland. It is also possible to lose even if you have substantial foreign backing, as Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other groups have discovered. However, even if foreign sanctuaries cannot necessarily lead an insurgency to victory, they can keep it from being totally defeated: that has been the experience of Colombia’s FARC, which was kept alive in large measure by support from Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez after it suffered a long string of defeats starting in 2002.
12. Technology has been less important in guerrilla war than in conventional war—but that may be changing. All guerrilla and terrorist tactics, from suicide bombing to hostage taking and roadside ambushes, are designed to negate the firepower advantage of conventional forces. In this type of war, technology counts for less than in conventional conflict. Even the possession of nuclear bombs, the ultimate weapon, has not prevented the Soviet Union and the United States from suffering ignominious defeat at guerrilla hands. To the extent that technology has mattered in low-insurgency conflicts, it has often been the nonshooting kind. As T. E. Lawrence famously said, “The printing press is the greatest weapon in the armory of the modern commander.” A present-day rebel might substitute “the Internet” for “the printing press,” but the essential insight remains valid.
However, the role of weapons in this type of war could grow in the future if insurgents get their hands on chemical, biological, or especially nuclear weapons. A small terrorist cell the size of a platoon might then have more killing capacity than the entire army of a nonnuclear state like Brazil or Egypt. That is a sobering thought. It suggests that in the future low-intensity conflict could pose even greater problems for the world’s leading powers than it has in the past. And, as we have seen, the problems of the past were substantial and varied.
APPENDIX
THE INVISIBLE ARMIES DATABASE
This database of insurgencies since 1775 is designed to supplement the historical narrative. It draws on existing databases, but it is designed to be more wide-ranging, more detailed, and more accurate than any previous compendium.
Outcomes are coded as 0 (an insurgent victory), 1 (a draw), 2 (a victory for the regulars), or 3 (ongoing). A coding of 2 is used even if the incumbent makes some political concessions and even if the insurgent group is not completely destroyed militarily. For example the British defeated the Provisional IRA in 1998 even though the Good Friday Accord gave the republicans representation in government. The IRA did not, however, achieve its goal of unification with Ireland. A 1 is coded when there is no clear-cut winner and the conflict ends in a negotiation in which both sides make significant concessions. For instance, EOKA was said to have gotten a draw rather than a victory in Cyprus because it forced the British out (save for two air bases) but did not unify Cyprus wi
th Greece.
Many databases (see, e.g., Lyall and Wilson, “Rage”) include only conflicts that pass a certain threshold, such as inflicting over 1,000 battle deaths. This excludes groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Baader-Meinhof Gang, and produces bias in favor of insurgents—just as a study of start-up companies would be biased in favor of entrepreneurs if it were limited to only those firms that achieved a certain revenue threshold or stock price. Most start-ups, like most insurgent groups, never get very far, and this fact needs to be recorded. Therefore this database attempts to include all significant insurgent movements since 1775. What does significant mean? That they caused some deaths and drew some attention from contemporaries and historians. Some of these groups may seem insignificant, but the same could have been said about the Chinese Communist Party when it was founded by thirteen delegates in Shanghai in 1921. Purely criminal enterprises such as the drug gangs of Mexico or the pirates of Somalia have been excluded.
There are two separate summaries of results: one that includes only resolved insurgencies and another that counts ongoing insurgencies as an incumbent victory. Most other databases exclude ongoing insurgencies altogether, but given that some guerrilla and terrorist groups have been struggling and failing for decades (e.g., FARC and the Kachin separatists), not counting them at all can give a skewed impression of insurgent prospects.
In a number of wars the insurgents prevailed only because of the intervention of outside forces. In conflicts such as the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s and the Cuban War of Independence in the 1890s, where the insurgents did much to spur that outside intervention, the outcome is scored as a 0. In other conflicts, such as most of the resistance fronts of World War II, the insurgents had little discernible impact on the intervention by outside powers, and therefore the outcome is recorded as a 1.
REGULARS INSURGENTS START END DURATION (days) DURATION (years) OUTCOME
UK American Colonies 4/19/1775 9/3/1783 3059 8.381 0
USA Cherokee Indians 5/1776 6/1794 6605 18.096 2
Dutch/Boers Xhosa 12/1779 7/1781 578 1.584 1
USA Northwest Indians 11/1785 8/3/1795 3562 9.759 2
Russia Chechnya (Sheikh Mansur) 7/1785 6/1791 2161 5.921 2
UK Australian Aborigines 5/29/1788 2/1869 29467 80.732 2
France Haitians 8/21/1791 1/1/1804 4515 12.370 0
France Catholics and Royalists in the Vendée 3/1793 1/1800 2497 6.841 2
Russia Poles 4/17/1794 4/19/1794 2 0.005 2
USA Whiskey Rebellion 7/1794 10/1794 92 0.252 2
UK Irish 5/23/1798 9/8/1798 108 0.296 2
Russia Georgia 9/1802 9/1841 14245 39.027 2
UK Irish 7/23/1803 7/23/1803 1 0.003 2
UK Kingdom of Kandy (Sri Lanka) 1/31/1803 10/30/1818 5751 15.756 2
Ottoman Serbs 1/1804 10/3/1813 3563 9.762 2
UK Irish in Australia 3/4/1804 3/4/1804 1 0.003 2
UK Spanish Colonists (Invasion of Rio de la Plata) 6/1806 7/1807 395 1.082 0
France Calabria (Italy) 3/1806 3/1811 1826 5.003 2
Haiti General Petion (Civil War) 10/17/1806 10/8/1820 5105 13.986 0
Ottoman Janissaries 1807 1808 ND 1.000 2
France Spanish Guerrillas (Peninsular War) 5/2/1808 4/17/1814 2176 5.962 0
UK Australia (Rum Rebellion) 1/26/1808 1/1/1810 706 1.934 2
Spain Bolivia 7/16/1809 4/1/1825 5738 15.721 0
Spain Ecuador 8/10/1809 5/22/1822 4668 12.789 0
France/Bavaria Tyrol (Austria) 4/1809 2/1810 306 0.838 2
Spain Mexico 9/16/1810 9/27/1821 4029 11.038 0
Spain Chile 9/18/1810 1/15/1826 5598 15.337 0
Spain Argentina 5/18/1810 4/5/1818 2879 7.888 0
USA Tecumseh/Shawnee Indians 10/1809 11/7/1811 767 2.101 2
Spain/Portugal Uruguay 5/18/1811 7/1821 3697 10.129 0
Spain Peru 6/1811 12/1824 4932 13.512 0
Spain Venezuela 7/5/1811 10/1823 4471 12.249 0
France Russian Partisans 6/1812 12/8/1812 190 0.521 0
USA Creek Indians 7/1813 11/7/1814 494 1.353 2
Ottoman Serbia 4/1815 11/1817 945 2.589 2
Russia Caucasus (Shamil et al.) c. 1817 c. 1864 ND 47.000 2
USA Seminole (First War) 2/1817 5/28/1818 481 1.318 2
UK Pindaris 11/6/1817 6/3/1818 210 0.575 2
France/Spain Spanish Carlists 12/1/1821 4/6/1823 492 1.348 2
Ottoman Greece 3/25/1821 4/25/1828 2588 7.090 0
Portugal Avilez Rebellion/Brazil 9/1821 8/29/1825 1458 3.995 0
Netherlands Padris (West Sumatra) 1821 1837 ND 16.000 2
UK Burma 9/24/1823 2/24/1826 884 2.422 2
UK Ashanti Kingdom (Ghana) 1/20/1824 8/7/1826 930 2.548 1
China Kashgari Rebels 1825 1828 ND 3.000 2
Mexico Yaqui & Mayo Tribes 10/25/1825 4/13/1827 535 1.466 2
Netherlands Prince Diponegoro 7/23/1825 3/28/1830 1710 4.685 2
UK Bharatpuris 12/1825 1/1826 32 0.088 2
Portugal Pedro IV/Liberals 7/1/1829 7/5/1834 1831 5.016 2
Russia Poles 11/29/1830 9/8/1831 283 0.775 2
Ottoman Syria 10/1/1831 12/27/1832 453 1.241 0
USA Blackhawk 5/14/1832 8/2/1832 80 0.219 2
Spain Carlists 7/15/1834 7/15/1840 2193 6.008 2
Brazil Republican Rebels 1/6/1835 5/1837 846 2.318 2
USA Seminole 12/28/1835 8/14/1842 2421 6.633 2
UK Quebec and Ontario 11/6/1837 11/1838 360 0.986 2
Texas Cherokee 5/1838 3/1839 304 0.833 2
UK Afghans 10/1/1838 10/12/1842 1472 4.033 0
Uruguay Colorados and Blancos (Civil War) 3/1838 2/1852 5085 13.932 2
France Abd al Kadr (Algeria) 11/1/1839 12/23/1847 2974 8.148 2
Ottoman Bosnians 1841 1841 183 0.501 2
UK Maoris 6/17/1843 5/1872 10546 28.893 2
UK Sindhs 2/15/1843 8/1843 167 0.458 2
Haiti Dominican Republic 2/27/1844 4/21/1849 1880 5.151 0
France Morocco 8/6/1844 9/10/1844 36 0.099 2
UK Sikhs 12/13/1845 3/9/1846 87 0.238 2
Habsburg Empire Krakow 2/15/1846 3/3/1846 16 0.044 2
USA Navajo 8/1846 1/14/1864 6375 17.466 2
UK Xhosa 1846 1847 366 1.003 2
USA Mexican guerrillas (Mexican-American War) 5/12/1846 2/2/1848 632 1.732 2
Spain Carlists (Second War) 5/15/1847 5/1/1849 718 1.967 2
Mexico Mayans in Yucatán (Caste War) 8/17/1848 3/4/1855 2390 6.548 2
Habsburg Empire Hungary 9/9/1848 8/13/1849 338 0.926 2
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies Sicilian Revolutionaries 1/12/1848 1/27/1848 15 0.041 2
Habsburg Empire Italian Revolutionaries 3/13/1848 10/31/1848 232 0.636 2
Prussia Greater Poland 3/1848 5/1848 61 0.167 2
Ottoman Wallachia 6/1848 9/1848 92 0.252 2
USA California Indians 9/1850 7/22/1863 4707 12.896 2
UK Xhosa 1850 1853 1097 3.005 2
China Taiping Heavenly Kingdom 10/1/1850 7/31/1864 1674 4.586 2
UK Burma 4/1852 1/1853 276.5 0.758 2
China Nian Militia 11/1853 8/1868 5387 14.759 2
USA Sioux 8/19/1854 9/3/1855 380 1.041 2
China Hakka Clan 1855 1867 ND 12.000 2
UK Santals (India) 1855 1856 366.5 1.004 2
USA Yakima 10/6/1855 9/5/1858 1065 2.918 2
USA Seminole 12/1855 3/1858 821 2.249 2
USA Kansas (Pro- and Anti-Slavery Forces) 5/21/1856 9/15/1856 117 0.321 2
France Algeria (Kabylia Region) 1856 1857 366.5 1.004 2
France Toucouleur Empire 1857 1857 183 0.501 2
UK Sepoy Mutineers (India) 5/10/1857 4/7/1859 697 1.910 2
USA John Brown 10/16/1859 10/18/1859 2 0.005 2
China Miao 10/25/1860 5/1/1872 4206 11.523 2
France Indochina 8/31/1858 6/5/1862 1375 3.767 2
China Hui/Chinese Muslims 10/25/1860 12/26/1872 4445 12.178 2
USA Apache Tribe 12/4/1860 4/7/1864 1220 3.342 2
UK Maoris 1860 1870 ND 10.000 2
Habsburg
Empire Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia 3/4/1860 3/23/1870 3672 10.060 0
USA Confederate Bushwhackers 4/12/1861 4/9/1865 1458 3.995 2
USA Sioux 8/17/1862 7/2/1868 2146 5.879 2
France Mexico (Revolt against Maximilian) 4/16/1862 2/5/1867 1756 4.811 0
UK Ashanti Kingdom (Ghana) 1863 1864 ND 1.000 1
Russia Poland 1/22/1863 4/19/1864 454 1.244 2
Spain Dominican Republic (Dominican Restoration War) 8/1863 3/1865 578 1.584 0
Russia Poles 1/1863 5/1864 486 1.332 2
China Sinkiang 7/1864 7/3/1871 2558 7.008 0
Russia Central Asian Khanates 9/1864 8/1873 3256 8.921 2
UK Bhutan 1/1865 11/11/1865 300 0.822 2
USA KKK/White Supremacists (Reconstruction) 1866 1876 ND 10.000 0
Ottoman Crete (First War) 5/29/1866 2/22/1867 270 0.740 2
USA Sioux (Red Cloud’s War) 12/21/1866 11/6/1868 686 1.879 1
UK Ethiopian Empire 12/1867 4/13/1868 120 0.329 2
Spain Cuba (Ten Years’ War) 10/10/1868 2/10/1878 3410 9.342 2
UK Red River Rebellion (Canada) 10/1869 8/24/1870 327 0.896 2
Prussia Francs-Tireurs (Franco-Prussian War) 7/15/1870 5/10/1871 299 0.819 2
France Algeria 3/1871 1/1872 307 0.841 2
France Paris Commune 4/2/1871 5/29/1871 57 0.156 2
USA Apache 4/1871 6/1873 792 2.170 2
Spain Carlists 4/20/1872 2/20/1876 1402 3.841 2
USA Modocs 11/30/1872 5/22/1873 173 0.474 2
France Tonkin (Indochina) 1873 1885 4384 12.011 2
Netherlands Aceh 1873 1913 ND 40.000 2
UK Ashanti Kingdom (Ghana) 1/1873 2/1874 395.5 1.084 2
USA Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho Tribes 6/27/1874 5/8/1875 315 0.863 2
Ottoman Herzegovina & Bulgaria 6/30/1876 3/1877 244 0.668 0
USA Apache (Geronimo) 9/1876 9/1886 3652 10.005 2
USA Sioux (Great Sioux War) 3/17/1876 11/25/1876 253 0.693 2